Queenie's Cafe (8 page)

While Ivy and Laura went to their rooms to clean up, Luke washed the brushes and scrubbed the paint off himself. He had white freckles all over his face from painting the ceiling.

He was ready to go when Laura and Ivy came back. Ivy cleaned up nice. She had dark blond hair, very long and straight, big brown eyes, and dimples. Cute kid.

Laura was pretty, especially when she smiled. Her eyes seemed to change color depending on her mood. At times, they were blue-gray and sparkling and at other times, they were as dark as angry thunder clouds. When she wore blue, her eyes were more blue, and if she wore green, they looked green. Interesting. Everything about her was interesting, but it was her independent streak that held his attention. She was too young to own her own businesses and deal with the problems inherent with neglected properties, yet she was determined to make a success of the café.

What was her father thinking to leave her alone with this mess? Why didn’t he stay and help her get things under control?

Luke was curious about the kid, but he didn’t ask any questions until after they ate and returned to the motel. Ivy thanked him and disappeared into her room, and Luke and Laura sat in his truck, talking. “Laura, where did she come from?”

“I have no idea. She said her parents threw her out because she was pregnant.”

“My grandparents threw my mother out for the same reason. She was seventeen.”

“Ivy says she’s sixteen, but I doubt she’s that old. She looked so tired and hungry, I couldn’t turn her away. I told her she could help me in exchange for a room.”

“Be careful, Laura. She looks young and innocent, but you don’t know this kid.”

“There’s nothing here for her to take, Luke. Nothing. Maybe, if she could carry a television, but they’re all about shot, so it wouldn’t be worth the trouble. I have no money, so that’s definitely not a problem.”

He twisted to face her. “You don’t have any money?”

She shook her head. “I filled my car today. If one of those banks doesn’t come through soon—”

Luke reached for his wallet.

Laura held up her hand. “I can’t take your money.”

“It’s a personal loan. Pay me back when you can.”

She slowly shook her head. “I’m a poor risk, Luke. I have no source of income.”

“Yet you’re feeding a strange kid. Take it.” He folded her hand over two hundred dollars. “That’s all I have with me today, but I’ll give you enough cash to open the café and get started. Pay it back when you can. I remember eating popcorn for dinner when I was a kid. Mom didn’t make much some weeks. She brought home leftovers when there were any, but it wasn’t something we could count on.”

“But your father owns all those carpet stores.”

He draped his left arm over the steering wheel. “Laura, I didn’t even know who my father was until my mother won all that money in the lottery four years ago. I’m just getting to know him.”

Her eyes widened. “Lottery?”

“Sixteen million. She won it the year I graduated from college. We use some of it to invest in small businesses, mostly restaurants.”

“Like Bernie’s Place?”

“That’s right. Our share of the profits from Bernie’s Place helps us invest in other places, like Queenie’s Café.”

The corners of her eyes turned up slightly when she smiled. “So I’m not just a charity case?”

“This is a business, not a charity. If I didn’t think you’d make a profit, I wouldn’t be interested.” He put his hand over hers. “Look, Laura. If I decide I don’t want a piece of your business, I’ll make a personal loan for whatever you need for start-up expenses for the café. Queenie’s Café has a lot of potential. It wouldn’t take much to turn it into a very successful business. There’s no other place to eat in this town except the pizza place.”

Laura Whitfield was a proud young woman. He admired her spunk and determination, but that stubborn pride was something else. “If you want to do this on your own, I’ll loan you as much as you need for the café, just like a bank, but I want you to open your eyes and consider the possibilities. Try to picture what this place could be. If you had enough money to do anything you wanted, what would it be?”

“You mean besides the obvious, fix up the buildings, resurface the parking lot, replace the roofs, paint, landscape, and maybe buy new furniture?”

“Aw, come on, Laura,” he said on a groan. “You can dream bigger than that.”

A smile played with the corners of her mouth. “Okay. I’d love to have a sunroom on the side by the street, something to catch the morning sun and brighten the place.”

“What would it look like?”

“I’d have green plants in the corners and a wrap-around planter outside, so you could see the flowers through the windows.” Her eyes lit with excitement as she talked.

“Sounds nice. How many tables would it hold?”

“Maybe four or five small ones.” The excitement left her eyes as reality invaded her dream. “I’ll never have enough business for that.”

“Laura, you need to learn how to dream.”

“Are you kidding?” She sighed. “All I’ve ever dared to dream is to have enough money to pay the bills.”

She spoke so softly he barely heard her words, but he knew how she felt. He and his mother had struggled for years. Now they didn’t have to. Laura didn’t have to struggle either, if she’d let him help her.

“When my mother won all that money, we sat down together and planned out how to spend it. We paid off all our bills, including my student loans, and bought new cars, but we had a lot of money left over. Mom had enough to build her dream house and buy anything she ever wanted, but she didn’t want much for herself. She helped her friends, sent their kids to college, and made anonymous donations to several worthy causes.

“Someone called and asked Mom if she’d be interested in helping her with a rundown diner she’d just bought. She offered to give Mom a piece of the business in exchange for financial help in getting started. I’d just graduated from Florida State with a degree in business, so we formed a corporation. I did the research and everything checked out with that woman’s business. It was the first one we invested in, but that was just the beginning.”

“So you do this full time?”

He nodded. “It’s the perfect job for me. I’d hate sitting behind a desk all the time. The corporation pays me a salary and benefits, like any other corporate job. That’s another thing for you to consider. With the corporation owning a portion of your business, you and your employees would be eligible for health care, dental, investment plan, workers’ comp – the whole works.”

“
Health care
? Who’s ever had health care?”

“Think about it, Laura. I know it’s tempting to do it all yourself, but do you really want to work yourself to death like your mother?”

“Not especially.” She slid off the seat of his pickup. “I’ll give it some thought. Thanks for the pizza and the loan.”

“You’re welcome. Buy more paint. I have to work for Earl in the morning, but I’ll be back for lunch and we’ll finish the painting.”

Laura watched him drive away. She didn’t especially want a partner, but if one of those banks didn’t come through, she wouldn’t have much choice. She wouldn’t get the same satisfaction as she would doing it by herself, but she didn’t want to end up surly and miserable like Queenie.

She walked into her apartment, remembering a scene from the past.

A month after Marv Walker’s wife passed away, Marv and Charley Fenderman came in for lunch. The two men looked like the odd couple. Marv was a meek little man, while Charley was big and boisterous. Good men, both of them. They ordered Queenie’s special hamburger and Charley teased Laura about something silly. She took her time with the order, giving them special attention. Charley’s teasing and Laura’s laughter finally coaxed a smile from Marv. And then Laura took the order back to the kitchen.

To Queenie.

“What do you think you’re doing in there?” The tone of Queenie’s voice burned Laura’s ears, and the muted conversation from the dining area stopped. Charley and Marv were listening.

“You’re turning into a slut, always showing off for the men who come in here.”

Trying her best to ignore Queenie’s unwarranted attack, Laura threw two hamburgers on the grill and blinked back the tears that stung her eyes.

“One of these days, you’ll flirt with the wrong man, and you know what will happen?”

“No, but I’m sure you’ll tell me,” Laura said through clenched teeth. She felt like screaming, but she didn’t want to scream while there were customers in the café.

Queenie’s harangue lasted several minutes, until Laura took the order out to her customers. “Your lunch, gentlemen. I’m sorry about the side show.”

Charley said, “I didn’t mean to get you in trouble.”

“You didn’t.”

The two men were the only lunch customers. As soon as they left, Laura walked out of the café. Queenie hated her, but then Queenie hated everyone.

Queenie yelled after her. “You’re not finished in the kitchen.”

Laura wanted to yell back at her, to tell her if she kept chasing the customers out, she wouldn’t need help with anything. But she kept her mouth closed.

She shook away her memories. It did no good to dwell on the past.

Maybe Dad would know what to do about the motel and the partnership Luke offered. She went inside and called him. “Dad, how are things going there?”

“Okay, I guess. What’s happening there?”

“Frank Fosdick refused to even consider a loan, so I applied at a couple banks in Melbourne.”

“Frank is a jerk.”

“He sure is. He tried to push me into selling.”

“If you sell, go through Carmen Messina. Frank will cheat you.”

“I know. I told him I’d take my business elsewhere.”

Laura walked around the counter with the phone in her hand. “There’s someone who approached me about a partnership. He suggested turning the motel into one-bedroom apartments. If I agree to the partnership, he’d also give me money to fix up the café. What do you think?”

“About the partnership or the apartments?”

“Both.”

“The apartments might not be a bad idea. I’d have to know more about the partnership deal. Who is it?”

“Luke Windsor. His mother is the one who won all that money in the lottery four years ago. She ran a little place like Queenie’s when he was growing up, so now they invest in other businesses.”

“I heard about their corporation. Who would have control, you or the corporation?”

“I don’t know yet.” She leaned on the counter and twisted the phone cord around her finger. “He said we’d need an estimate on the remodel costs and an appraisal.”

“That makes sense. It might not be a bad idea under the right conditions. You can’t compete with the motel chains. You could pour money into the motel and still not compete with the chains.”

As if she had money to pour into anything.

“Luke is the silent partner in Bernie’s Place in West Palm Beach. We went there for lunch the other day. It’s a really nice place, Dad. Luke and Bernie designed it together. He seems to know what he’s doing.”

“See if he’ll give you other references. Call around and check him out.”

“Okay.” Laura sank into the chair behind the counter. “I really wanted to do it myself, but I don’t know.”

“You can’t do it all yourself, Laura. You’ll work yourself to death and end up hating it there as much as I did.”

She’d never known her father to be happy, but she thought that would change when he left Kingston. But he still didn’t sound happy. “Is everything all right there?”

He didn’t answer right away, and when he did, his, “Sure,” didn’t sound very convincing.

Were he and Florence getting along, or was it something else?

<>

The next afternoon, Luke arrived with a little boom box and a stack of old cassettes. Laura was surprised a wealthy man like Luke would keep anything so outdated.

Ivy found several Elvis tapes in the stack. She wrinkled her nose. “You guys really listen to this stuff? Isn’t this from like back in the dark ages, like the fifties and sixties?”